March 28

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-England Chronicle (March 28, 1776).

“THE 2d Salem Edition of the celebrated Pamphlet, intitled COMMON SENSE.”

A brief advertisement in the March 28, 1776, edition of the New-England Chronicle alerted readers that “THE 2d Salem Edition of the celebrated Pamphlet, intitled, COMMON SENSE, is just published, and to be sold by EZEKIEL RUSSELL of that place.”  It was the fourth advertisement for Thomas Paine’s influential political pamphlet that appeared in a newspaper published in Massachusetts and perhaps the first one that promoted an edition of Common Sense printed in that colony.

On March 4, the Boston-Gazette, printed in Watertown during the siege of Boston, carried a notice offering “A few of those celebrated Pamphlets … to be Sold (if applied for soon) at Mr. Samuel Wait’s … in Cambridge; and at the Printing Office in Watertown.”  Benjamin Edes, the printer of the Boston-Gazette, did not indicate which edition he stocked.  The copies he had on hand may have come from the press of Judah P. Spooner in Norwich, Connecticut, or from the press of John Carter in Providence, Rhode Island.  Alternately, Edes may have acquired copies published in New York or Philadelphia.  Perhaps Russell had published a local edition in Salem by early March, doing so without fanfare in the public prints.  Edes ran the same advertisement again three weeks later.

In the time between the appearances of those advertisements in the Boston-Gazette, Samuel Hall offered for sale at his printing office in Cambridge “A few copies of that valuable pamphlet, intitled COMMON SENSE” in an advertisement in the March 14, 1776, edition of the New-England Chronicle.  Which edition did he sell?  Could it have been the first edition printed in Salem by Russell?  If so, why did the advertisement published on March 28 indicate that Russell sold the “2d Salem Edition” in that town but Edes did not have copies in Cambridge?

Whatever the answer to that question, this reference to a “2d Salem Edition” seems to suggest an edition published there but not listed in Richard Gimbel’s Bibliographical Check List of Common Sense.  Gimbel identifies only one edition published in Salem in 1776.[1]  Its title page identified it as the “Third Edition,” though that did not necessarily mean that Russell printed three editions.  Instead, it likely indicated that he knew of two previous editions.  When John Carter published local editions in Providence, he identified them as the “Sixth Edition” and the “Tenth Edition,” presumably taking into account editions printed in Philadelphia, New York, and other towns that came to his attention via newspaper advertisements, correspondence, and exchanges with fellow printers.[2]  That being the case, Russell almost certainly knew that any Salem edition he published was not the third edition printed in the colonies, but perhaps the disruptions caused by the war had an impact on his networks for collecting information at the time he first took a Salem edition to press.  That the advertisement in the New-England Chronicle cites a “2d Salem Edition” yet Gimbel lists only one edition of Common Sense printed there might indicate that yet another edition circulated in 1776 even though no known copies have survived in historical societies, research libraries, and private collections.  Paine’s pamphlet went through more editions than any other published during the era of American Revolution.  Perhaps it had one more edition than scholars previously realized.

**********

[1] Richard Gimbel, Thomas Paine: A Bibliographical Check List of Common Sense with an Account of Its Publication (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956), 91.

[2] Gimbel, Thomas Paine, 90-91.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 28, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Maryland Gazette (March 28, 1776).

**********

New-England Chronicle (March 28, 1776).

**********

New-England Chronicle (March 28, 1776).

**********

New-York Journal (March 28, 1776).

**********

New-York Journal (March 28, 1776).

**********

New-York Journal (March 28, 1776).

**********

New-York Journal (March 28, 1776).

**********

New-York Journal (March 28, 1776).

**********

New York Packet (March 28, 1776).

**********

New York Packet (March 28, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published March 28, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

New-England Chronicle (March 28, 1776).

**********

New York Packet (March 28, 1776).

**********

New York Packet (March 28, 1776).

March 27

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Journal (March 27, 1776).

“The above goods are now offered … as low as goods of the same quality have been sold … for two years past.”

As spring arrived in 1776, Peter Stretch advertised an assortment of textiles and accessories available at his store on Walnut Street in Philadelphia.  In a notice in the March 27 edition of the Pennsylvania Journal, he listed many kinds of fabrics, including “SCARLET, brown, drab and mixed superfine broadcloaths and trimmings,” “spotted velvets and thicksetts,” and “best black Paduasoy and white sattin.”  Among the accessories, he stocked “death-head and basket buttons,” “knee garters,” and “buttons worked with pearl and spangle, on the most fashionable colours.”  Stretch’s inventory also included “claret, brown, drab, blue, scarlet, and mixed superfine Bath coatings, as fine as were ever imported into this place.”  He conveniently did not mention when he had received shipment of any of his wares, sidestepping whether they arrived before the Continental Association went into effect on December 1, 1774, though he had on another occasion detailed his compliance with that pact.

In this instance, Stretch did assert that his goods “are now offered to the public as low as goods of the same quality have been sold for in this place for two years past.”  In that regard, he did acknowledge the nonimportation agreement devised by the Second Continental Congress in response to the Coercive Acts that Parliament passed to punish Boston for destroying tea by throwing it into the harbor in December 1773.  The ninth article required that “Venders of Goods or Merchandise will not take Advantage of the Scarcity of Goods that may be occasioned by this Associacion, but will sell the same at the Rates we have been respectively accustomed to do for twelve Months past.”  It also specified that merchants and shopkeepers who did engage in price gouging then “no Person ought, nor will any of us deal with any such Person … at any Time thereafter, for any Commodity whatever.”  Stretch certainly wanted to avoid such consequences!  In stating that his prices matched those charged two years earlier, he assured prospective customers that they were in line with prices from before the Continental Association went into effect.  He did not promise great bargains, but at least his customers did not have to worry that he took advantage of the disruptions to trade caused by the imperial crisis and a war that started the previous April.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 27, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Connecticut Journal (March 27, 1776).

**********

Constitutional Gazette (March 27, 1776).

**********

Pennsylvania Journal (March 27, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published March 27, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Connecticut Journal (March 27, 1776).

**********

Constitutional Gazette (March 27, 1776).

March 26

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette (March 26, 1776).

“All Watch and Clock Maker’s please to stop the above mentioned Watch.”

What happened to Alexander Shaw’s watch?  In an advertisement in Dunlap’s Maryland Gazette, he reported that it had been “STOLEN out of the house of James Carson, in Gay-street” in Baltimore on March 12, 1776.  He did not give other details about the circumstances, instead focusing on a description of the “SILVER WATCH.”  It could be identified as “No. 178, the make’s name Daniel Hubert, White Frier’s, London,” though Shaw did not indicate whether those details had been engraved on the watch or appeared on a watch paper that protected the face of the watch when stored.  Other identifying characteristics included: “siler faced, with a pinchbeck chain, and a seal stamped King George’s head.”  Shaw offered a reward of forty shillings to anyone who returned the watch to him.

He also took an opportunity to enlist the aid of watchmakers and clockmakers in recovering his stolen watch.  In a nota bene, he requested that they “stop the above mentioned Watch, if given to be cleaned or offered for sale.”  Artisans and shopkeepers sometimes placed advertisements to alert readers that they “stopped” or confiscated items that they suspected had been stolen and presented to them for repairs, for sale, or to barter.  Thieves, burglars, and shoplifters participated in what Serena Zabin has called an “informal economy” that gave them access to consumer culture in early America, though not everyone who possessed stolen goods had taken them.  Instead, consumers active in the “informal economy” purchased items that had been fenced, sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly.  Shaw seemed less concerned with capturing whoever had stolen his watch than with recovering it, perhaps realizing that anyone who took it to a watchmaker or clockmaker to have it cleaned or to sell it had not necessarily stolen it.  He hoped that the reward would encourage members of that trade to be vigilant in examining watches brought to their shops, increasing the chances of recovering his precious keepsake.  Many newspaper notices promoted goods to consumers, but Shaw used this advertisement to recover an item previously in his possession.

Advertisements for Common Sense Published March 26, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Guest Contribution

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Pennsylvania Evening Post (March 26, 1776).

March 25

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

“Work in the jewellery way … all sorts of silver-smiths work.”

By the time that Charles Oliver Bruff, a goldsmith and jeweler, placed his advertisement in the March 25, 1776, edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury he was a veteran advertiser with at least a decade of experience running notices in the public prints in New York.  While little direct evidence about the effectiveness of advertising in early America exists, the fact that Bruff repeatedly invested in marketing suggests that he believed that it worked and considered it worth the investment.  Indeed, his latest advertisement consisted of two advertisements.  The copy for the first one ran as its own notice in the Constitutional Gazette more than six months earlier.  As the first anniversary of the battles at Lexington and Concord approached, Bruff once again offered swords to “Those GENTLEMEN who are forming themselves into COMPANIES in defence of their LIBERTIES.”

Bruff may have considered advertising effective because he did more than merely announce that he had goods for sale.  Instead, he carefully crafted appeals to consumers, encouraging them to purchase his wares.  As he targeted prospective customers “forming themselves into COMPANIES,” for instance, he adorned them with likenesses of British politicians who advocated for the American colonies and corresponding mottoes, including “[William] Pitt’s head, Magna Charta and Freedom” and “[John]Wilkes’s head[,] Wilkes and Liberty.”  He also underscored that the words he stocked were “made in America, all manufactured by said BRUFF.”  When nonimportation agreements became one of the primary strategies for practicing politics, Bruff and other entrepreneurs marketed goods produced in the colonies.

The goldsmith and jeweler also deployed visual images to promote his business.  He advised readers that he kept shop “At the sign of the Tea Pot, Tankard, and Earring,” but they likely noticed the woodcut that adorned his advertisement before anything else.  It featured several of the items available at his shop, including a handheld looking glass with an ornate handle and frame, a ring, a buckle, and an earring.  The image also included an elaborate coat of arms.  A shield decorated with two silver balls, a chevron, and a fish was in the center.  A hand grasping a sheaf of wheat appeared above the shield.  Ribbons cascaded over the side, giving way to leaves and flowers.  The ornate woodcut corresponded to an appeal that Bruff made in the second of those advertisements combined into a single lengthy advertisement: “He engraves all sorts of arms, crests, cyphers, heads, and fancies in the neatest manner.”  For good measure, he reminded prospective customers that he also engraved “all emblems of liberty” on jewelry and other items.

In addition to his “work in the jewellery way” and “silver-smiths work,” Bruff provided other services to entice customers into his shop.  He cleaned watches, installed new glass, and made other repairs at reasonable prices and even “works hair in springs, birds, figures, cyphers, crests and cupid fancies” and “plaits hair in the neatest manner.”  Bruff made his advertisements worth the investment by developing a variety of appeals to consumers and promising an array of goods and services to encourage them to visit his shop.

Slavery Advertisements Published March 25, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Boston-Gazette (March 25, 1776).

**********

Boston-Gazette (March 25, 1776).

‘**********

Connecticut Courant (March 25, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).

**********

New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (March 25, 1776).